The present new and unique formulation and method of production relates to a paint medium and more specifically to a uniquely formulated medium for use with oil paints of all colors which eliminates the use of, or need for, solvents, resins, and driers. It can be used by two distinct groups of artists, with each group requiring a distinctly different method of use such as, but not limited to, being used as an improved “painting medium” for artists who use commercially manufactured oil paints or being used as an improved “grinding oil” for artists who make their own oil paints through the process called “hand-grinding”.
The present new and unique formulation and method of its production uses two traditional, basic, and ancient artist's ingredients, that by this present new and unique formulation and method of its production, are combined by a specific formulation to create a new and useful “medium” for use with oil paint or to create oil paints in all colors, and by its properties, this present new and unique formulation and method of its production eliminates the use of all resins, or solvents, or driers.
The first required component is any of the vegetable oils known as a “drying oil”, that have been used by artists since ancient times. The preferred drying oil for this present new and unique formulation and method of its production is linseed oil. Other common artist's drying oils are walnut oil, or poppy oil, to name but a few, any of which can be used. The term “drying oil” should be understood to mean a natural vegetable oil suitable for artist's permanent work because it will dry hard over time by continuous exposure to oxygen. This new and unique formulation and method of production is comprised of three distinctly different and unique formulations, and combinations thereof, each of which formulation uses either an unrefined drying oil (as was used by artists prior to the 19th century) or an alkali refined drying oil (which was invented in the 19th century), with either of these two oils being used in an unpolymerized state (non-thickened) or in a polymerized state (thickened).
It is important to know that the degree of polymerization can vary greatly between different batches, with the understanding that the more the oil is polymerized (thickened) the viscosity of the polymerized oil is increased. This fact, and the choice of the specific drying oil used, whether unrefined or alkali refined, will impact the resulting properties, and the specific differences and uses of each formulation.
The second required component is calcium carbonate, also known generally as calcite, or chalk. The calcium carbonate should be used in a powdered, dry form, either in its natural state or in a processed precipitated state, and as such, it can vary widely in range from fine to coarse powder, as well as in a wide range of tints, without impacting its effectiveness or usefulness. As with the above named “drying oils”, calcium carbonate has been used by artists since ancient times, but not as envisioned by the present new and unique formulation and method of its production. In the past it was employed for other very specific reasons and uses.
One traditional use was to mix the dry powdered calcium carbonate with an aqueous, non-oil, glue liquid to create a thin, opaque, white, creamy liquid that was called “gesso”, which was typically used to cover the artist's “support” (artist's term referring to a canvas or a wood panel) to create an adequate surface upon which the artist could paint a picture.
A second traditional use was to mix the dry powdered calcium carbonate with an aqueous, non-oil, glue liquid, also called “gesso”, but the mixture was made much thicker than as used for covering the support. In this consistency, the thick gesso was used as a plaster to create moldings and other raised textures on frames.
A third traditional use was to add the calcium carbonate dry powder to the traditional artist's white lead powder as an extender, and then both mixed together with a vegetable drying oil to create a white oil paint. The calcium carbonate powder was much less expensive that the white lead powder, and the resulting white oil paint was adequate and useful without any objectionable defects except that the white paint it was mixed with, lost a certain amount of opacity, because calcium carbonate becomes translucent and almost transparent when mixed with an oil.
Though the present new and unique formulation and method of its production uses both of these two traditional and ancient artist's materials (a “drying oil” and calcium carbonate), its manner of application, manner of use, and specific formulation, and effect provide a new and useful paint medium having unique characteristics beneficial to the artist.
Artists, and consumers of artworks, use the word, “permanence” to define the artworks that were and are created with lasting materials, as some, but not all, European Old Master oil paintings that have survived in extraordinary condition for over 500 years. Artists who paint in oil paints, in particular, demand and require materials that are not only “permanent”, but also provide benefits and facilitate the technical painting process, to make possible a wide variety of visual and textural effects, and which provide a wealth of positive benefits to promote freedom for the creative process. Some of these technical and creative benefits created by this present new and unique formulation and method of its production are, but not limited to these:
1. Sensuous enamel-like textures;
2. Rich, deep, glowing, translucent, or, transparent, enamel-like colors;
3. Facile blending and mixing of colors;
4. Ease of layering with complete adhesion in various circumstances of wet or dry paint layers;
5. A variety of additive or deductive paint application methods, with absolute control, and retention of any markings, brushwork or tool work, whether micro-fine or ruggedly broad; and
6. Drying times easily controlled to dry faster or to dry slower, by choices of “drying oils”, and hard drying surfaces that withstand conditions normally encountered by paintings, such as dust, moisture, abrasions.
History has left posterity a large variety of ancient manuscripts in a variety of European languages, many being but poor copies of lost originals, many filled with contradictions, errors, omissions, and filled with words that are ancient and have lost all meaning, or are impossible to be translated for understanding by persons in the modern world. Much of the ancient knowledge of painting with the use of a variety of media, has been lost, corrupted, poorly organized, secretly protected, mistranslated from one language to another, and even falsified to fool others as to procedures or materials, in order to eliminate any competition.
Not all things in oil painting are obvious to the naked eye nor to the logical mind. Many Old Masters who discovered secrets, or developed unique methods of painting, guarded them closely, and as a result of not writing them down, many are lost to posterity forever. In the subsequent centuries, many famous intellectuals, writers, and even master artists (each lacking modern scientific instruments of analysis) voiced their most learned and experienced, and educated opinions, about the unknown procedures of past masters of oil painting. Each of them failed to unveil many secrets of ancient procedures, materials preparations, use of materials, and application methods.
These important and respected intellectuals, with published books on the study of art history and the study of methods and materials of artists throughout art history, had not known about, nor suspected, nor detected the use of calcium carbonate as an additive by two master artists, to their colored paints, though it has long been common knowledge that artists have added calcium carbonate as an extender to their traditional white paint made of white lead pigment. The calcium carbonate was used as an extender because it is much less expensive than the white lead pigment powder; even though it was known that the resulting white paint lost a certain degree of opacity. This loss of opacity occurs because calcium carbonate becomes translucent when in a thick layer and almost transparent in a thin layer, when mixed with oil.
As discussed above, the traditional uses of calcium carbonate since ancient times, has been for three basic reasons:
1. To be used with a mixture of an aqueous based (non-oil) glue to create a thin consistency, brushable, opaque white mixture that was used as a “gesso”, and then spread upon the canvas or wood support to create a white surface upon which to paint a picture.
2. In using the same aqueous based glue as just mentioned, but mixed to a thicker consistency, it was used as a “gesso” to create textured moulding designs on frames.
3. When mixed with the more expensive traditional white pigment known as “lead white”, the less expensive calcium carbonate was added as an “extender”, to create a larger quantity of white oil paint, at a lower cost to the artist.
It is important to know that it is the “medium” that plays a large part in the permanence of oil paintings. This present new and unique formulation and method of its production is not intended to minimize the importance of the other components of painting, such as the “support” (board, canvas, etc.) or the pigments used. In particular to oil painting (as differentiated from other media, such as egg tempera) the “medium” is of extreme importance and determines the degree of permanence of the paint in an oil painting, and, equally determines the working properties and handling of the paint layers, and therefore determines, by making possible or making impossible, the visual effects achieved and retained as the desired by the artist.
Of primary importance to the present new and unique formulation and method of its production, one must know the difference between unrefined oils commonly used by artists of antiquity up to the 19th century, and alakli refined oils, produced since the 19th century, and commonly used in our world today. It is also important to understand that the unrefined cold-pressed linseed oil used by the Old Masters is not commonly used today. Cold-pressing refers to the act of squeezing the seed to extract its oil without the application of any heat in the process. Though less oil is extracted in this manner, it results in a finer quality oil and a polymerized refined oil results in a slower drying process for paint than that of a polymerized unrefined oil.
The reason linseed oil as currently used by modern artists has been refined is because artists, even from ancient times, have known about and have tried to eliminate the “yellowing” of linseed oil through a variety of ancient processes, but without any real success. This “yellowing” causes blue colors to appear greenish and white colors to have a yellowish tinge. The only remedy known to the ancient artists was to process the oil for use by exposure to the sun's rays to clarify it.
Equally, yellowed paintings could also be exposed to the sun, and the sun rays would bleach out the yellowish tinge. But, in both cases, the bleaching is but temporary, and the yellowish tinge reappears, especially if paintings or the oils are kept in darkness. It was in the 19th century that scientists refined the linseed oil with alkali chemicals, and, with but a few exceptions, this alkali refined linseed oil is the standard oil used today in the manufacture of artist quality oil paints. The “Old Holland” oil paint manufacturing company continues to use unrefined linseed oil in the manufacturing of their artist's oil paints, and has done so continuously since the 17th century.
In view of this history, it has only been in the late years of the 20th century that the advancement of scientific instruments has allowed the examination of extraordinarily small paint samples taken from important oil paintings which are hundreds of years old. Even as of today, scientists relate the great difficulty—with constant ongoing academic disagreements and debate—they encounter in attempting to identify aged components of the materials used in these paintings. Yet, the material known as calcium carbonate has been identified as having been found as an component in some of the colored oil paint, not just in the white oil paint (e.g., paintings by Rembrandt Van Rijn and Diego Velazquez, 17th century masters).
Additionally, it is known that some Old Master painters added a variety of other materials to their oil paint, to include ground glass known as Smalt, or the inclusion of protienacious and/or aqueous materials, be they glue, egg, or gum. These additives were included for a variety of reasons, such as to accelerate drying, elimination of wrinkling of thick paint, added translucency of colors, textural manipulation, improved adhesion and other reasons.
The present new and unique formulation and method of its production uses the concept that two ancient materials can be combined together in a newly formulated ratio of mixture, to create a new and useful, “medium” for use with, and to produce, oil paints, to be used as a painting medium by artists who either use the oil paints available commercially, or, to be used as a grinding oil by artists who make (grind) their own paint by hand. And, by using this new and useful paint medium, the artists of today can achieve the paint quality of the Old Masters, can guarantee the permanence and longevity of their paintings, can gain the many benefits of technical application described above, and can gain many benefits for creative exploration.
As stated above, it was only recently that late 20th century scientists detected minuscule amounts of calcium carbonate through analysis of extraordinarily minute sized paint samples from Old Master paintings painted by at least two 17th century Old Masters (Rembrandt and Velazquez). There is no prior art for use of a drying oil of any kind (i.e., linseed, walnut, poppy, etc.) combined with calcium carbonate, in the ratios and in the manner of production as described herein, to create a medium for use by artists in oil painting, to be used by artists with their full range of colored paints, for the purpose of giving their oil paints improved and unique properties.
The foregoing has outlined some of the more pertinent objects of the present new and unique formulations and method of production. These objects should be construed to be merely illustrative of some of the more prominent features and applications of the present new and unique formulations and method of production. Many other beneficial results can be attained by applying the disclosed present new and unique formulations and method of production in a different manner or by modifying the present new and unique formulations and method of production within the scope of the disclosure. Accordingly, other objects and a fuller understanding of the present new and unique formulations and method of production may be had by referring to the summary of the present new and unique formulations and method of production and the detailed description of the preferred embodiment in addition to the scope of the present new and unique formulations and method of production defined by the claims taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.